Canvas Developer Guide

Getting Started
Introducing Canvas
Quick Start
Quick Start—Advanced
Prerequisites
Clone the Project from GitHub
Run the Web App Locally
Create the Canvas App
Configure Who Can Access the Canvas App
Deploy the Web App to Heroku
Update the Canvas App
Package the Canvas App
Upload the Canvas App Package
Install the Canvas App
Configure Who Can Access the Installed Canvas App
Using Force.com Canvas
Reference
PDF

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Prerequisites

You need the appropriate access and tools to complete the quick start steps.
  • Access to a Developer Edition organization for developing your canvas app. To install your canvas app, you’ll need a Developer Edition organization other than the one you use to create the canvas app.

    If you are not already a member of the Lightning Platform developer community, go to developer.salesforce.com/signup and follow the instructions for signing up for a Developer Edition organization. Even if you already have Enterprise Edition, Unlimited Edition, or Performance Edition, use Developer Edition for developing, staging, and testing your solutions against sample data to protect your organization’s live data. This is especially true for applications that insert, update, or delete data (as opposed to simply reading data).

    If you have an existing Developer Edition organization, and, from Setup, you don’t see the menu item Canvas App Previewer, contact Salesforce.

  • “Customize Application” and “Modify All Data” user permissions. If you’re an administrator, you most likely already have these permissions. Otherwise, you need to add them so that you can see the Canvas App Previewer and create canvas apps.
  • Git installed. Go here to install and configure Git: https://help.github.com/articles/set-up-git.

    After you install Git, you might need to configure SSH by using the keygen tool. See https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys for more information. If you’re using Windows, this tool is located in the Git \bin directory, which isn’t added to the path after you install Git. Add the \bin directory to your path by using Control Panel. Depending on your installation directory, the path might be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin.

  • A GitHub account to clone the code example. Go here to set up a GitHub account: https://github.com/plans.
  • Maven 3.0 or greater installed to package the sample app. Go here to download and install Maven: http://maven.apache.org/download.html.
  • A Heroku account if you want to run the app from Heroku. Go here to create a Heroku account: https://api.heroku.com/signup.
  • Heroku Toolbelt if you want to manage the Heroku app from the command line. Go here to download and install Heroku Toolbelt: https://toolbelt.heroku.com.